


Address Unknown

by GoddessofBirth



Series: angel!verse [3]
Category: Chronicles of Riddick Series, Firefly, Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-29
Updated: 2012-04-29
Packaged: 2017-11-04 12:35:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoddessofBirth/pseuds/GoddessofBirth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel gets a late night visitor, and history begins to unravel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Address Unknown

Castiel poised on the brink between wakefulness and sleep, his chest pressed firmly against Dean's back and his cheek resting on his shoulder blade. It hadn't been as hard as he'd thought, truly falling. Ripping out his Grace had been excruciating, especially with all his brothers and sisters watching, their faces flushed with the victory they had won, eyes confused because they couldn't understand why, at the moment of triumph, he was turning his back on heaven.

 

And the fall...the fall had been long and painful and full of terror, but at the end, there had been Dean, kneeling over his prone form, his expression a mix of fear and hope that morphed to exultant relief when Castiel had rasped out his first words as a newly minted human, throat raw and sore. And then there had been fingers tangling in hair and clothes and the press of chapped lips parting over his. He wondered if they might have christened his fall into sin, right there in that burnt out field, if it hadn't been for Sam's presence behind Dean's shoulder, flinging his hands over his eyes and good-naturedly howling about mental trauma.

 

So that had had to wait, through seven long hours, as Dean pushed the Impala far past the legal limits, speeding down dark roads to Bobby's house, stopping only for a fast food drive through and then for Castiel to vomit it all back up, his body not yet used to the properly mortal act of digesting far, far too copious amounts of cheeseburgers. Finally, _finally_ , they had hit Bobby's front porch, Dean barely managing a semi-polite hello, before dragging Castiel upstairs to a bathroom, to carefully clean and disinfect the various cuts and bruises his fall had gifted him with, his hands everywhere all at once as Castiel's head had lolled back and sensation ran through him. Even before, in all the times he had come so, so close to this, on the very brink of humanity, some bit of angelic nature had remained, some tiny piece of film separating him from God's perfectly imperfect creations. Now though, the veil had been completely ripped away, and it was _glorious_.

 

When Dean had done all the mothering possible, bandaged and stitched Castiel within an inch of his mortal life, it had been Castiel that had taken that final step, dragged an unprotesting Dean into a room with peeling wallpaper and a slightly off, mildewy smell, and laid claim to him in the only way they had not yet owned each other.

 

Months had passed, and, apocalypse averted, the world still turned on. Monsters still stalked humans, demons still managed to slip their fiery chains, and hunters still hunted. Motel to motel, Team Free Will stalked the things that stalked the night, the only new difference being them taking two rooms instead of one, and Sam finding endless amusement in taunting Dean and Castiel about bites and bruises and scratch marks, asking when they were going to register for matching linens.

 

Castiel pressed his lips against Dean's spine as he drifted closer to true sleep, letting his fingers brush across Dean's cheek, tracing the creases he had gotten from his face being pressed into the seams of the pillow case as Castiel had moved over him, his hands white knuckled against the headboard for better purchase. The hazy edges of a dream started to overtake him.

 

'Castiel.'

 

He was wide awake in an instant, spinning upright and thrusting his hand under the pillow for the angel sword before realizing to whom the sandpaper voice belonged. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and looked curiously at the angel perched on the edge. His eyes glinted unnaturally in the darkness and he regarded Castiel solemnly.

 

'Riddick. Brother.'

 

'I've looked for her everywhere. Is she dead?' His words were harsh and abrupt, barely betraying a hint of the fear Castiel knew they hid.

 

He shook his head slowly. 'I don't think so.' He wondered why Dean, normally a light sleeper, hadn't roused at the noise, and realized he was probably being  _kept_ asleep. Riddick followed his glance back to his slumbering lover and nodded.

 

'He doesn't need to hear this. Where is she?'

 

'I don't know, brother.'

 

'Bullshit, Cas. I never lied to you. Don't you insult me by lying to me now.'

 

Castiel rasped out low. 'I don't  _know_ .'

 

'You were leading the whole Host. How can you just not know? Did she fall? Is she walking the earth?'

 

He pinched the bridge of his nose, one of those human gestures he was picking up more and more. 'Michael...Raphael...they hid her away a long time ago. They could tell...they sensed I was beginning to have doubts, fears. They thought she was the root of them.'

 

'Where they right?'

 

'Yes.'

 

Riddick grunted sympathetically. After all, their sister was the whole reason he had finally abandoned heaven.

 

'What happened after I left?'

 

Castiel shoved down the small bit of anger and irritation he harbored for his brother; he had left them when he needed him most, when the first cracks to Castiel's faith had occurred, even though he had not recognized them for what they were. He understood now, as he had not fully understood then, why Riddick had gone; he wanted to spare Heaven another war, wanted to protect Castiel the best he could, and underneath it all, he simply couldn't bear to watch the broken thing their sister had become.

 

'You saw what the re-education did to her, what holding out so long, with so much faith, caused.' Their sister had had real faith, true, unshakable belief in the goodness of God, and her stubbornness had caused her to fracture from the inside out rather than submit to the flawed reasoning of Raphael and the other archangels.

 

'But, Riddick, it got so, so much worse. She became completely mad; violent, unpredictable, striking without rhyme or reason. They simply tried to keep her contained to Heaven at first, but she kept escaping. There were...deaths. Human ones. Angelic ones. She was occasionally found keeping company with demons, things of the night. They sheltered her. Hid her.'

 

'Simon?'

 

Castiel grimaced. 'Sometimes. The final time they allowed me to retrieve her, he seemed to have grown quite...protective.'

 

At Riddick's look, Castiel made a negative sound. 'Not like that.'

 

Riddick crossed his arms. 'I don't understand. Why didn't Raphael just execute her? Why go to the trouble?'

 

The crux of the matter; the thing he knew would infuriate his brother, just as it had caused his own Grace to bleed. 'Not long after you left...she began to prophesy.'

 

Riddick's head jerked and his whole body tensed. 'What?'

 

'Something in what they did to her, in her breaking...She began to issue prophesies. Garbled, to be sure, sometimes completely unintelligible, but they always, always came true. Things about Lucifer, about God, about the apocalypse. Things about the Winchester family. Things I still don't understand, things about humans that should have no importance at all.'

 

'They used her as a weapon.' His brother's voice was flat, angry and violent.

 

'Yes. She became too important to kill, even if it would have been a mercy.' It pained him to say it, to admit that his closest sister, carved out of Grace on the same day as he, might be better off dead than wondering in shattered pieces of her former self, but it might be the truth.

 

'The archangels bound her, built a prison to hold her, to trap her Grace. She screamed, brother.' Castiel squeezed his eyes shut against the memory. 'You cannot imagine her screams.' She had called for him, had called for  _Riddick_ , but Castiel wanted to spare his brother the pain of that.

 

'I tried to..reason...with them. It didn't work. That's when they took her; placed her somewhere I could no longer find her, hear her. I looked. I promise.' It was important to him that Riddick believe him, that he understood that Castiel had not forgotten either of them in his duties. Much of what he was, the choices he had made in the last six years, were due to the lessons he had learned from Riddick. Michael may have raised Lucifer, but Castiel had been raised by Riddick.

 

'Do you have any idea? Any clue where or how?'

 

A realization hit Castiel. 'This is why you returned, isn't it? You came for her.'

 

Riddick toyed with the strap of the smoked goggles his vessel required for his mutated Grace. 'You said I couldn't imagine her screams? Don't have to imagine. I heard 'em, Cas. I heard 'em.'

 

'Why did it take you so long then? To come back?' No matter differences in dimensions or time, angelic flight should have been quicker than thought.

 

The angel smirked. 'You think after I butchered that last garrison Michael sent to bring me home, he didn't take precautions? They warded this world up the ass against me. Took me this long just to work my way through them.'

 

'I have no clue where they took her, Riddick. You may look if you like, in case I have missed something.' He didn't give the permission lightly; an angel rifling through a human's memory was never a pleasant thing, but this was his sister, this was River, and he would do anything he could to help, frail mortality be damned.

 

He closed his eyes as Riddick placed two fingers on his forehead and didn't try to stop the long, loud scream that tore from his throat, as his mind was peeled back and scoured. It was over in seconds, and he slumped back, drained and worn.

 

'Anything?'

 

'Maybe. She was found with a child once?'

 

'Yes, years ago, one of those humans that could hear our true voice. She's been found with a child, with an Oni, with the demons, and once with a hunter. Does this help?'

 

'Gives me a place to start.' Riddick stood and then faced Castiel. 'Giving you fair warning, Cas. I'm gonna find her, and if I have to rip heaven apart to do it, so be it. Bound to trickle down here, so get you and your people prepared.'

 

'What will you do when you find her?'

 

'Fix her. Was a mistake to leave in the first place.'

 

Castiel refrained from sharing his opinion that their sister might be past fixing. 'I will give you whatever help I can.'

 

Riddick gave a pointed look at where Dean slept, his chest rising and falling in slow rhythm. 'How's he gonna feel about that?'

 

'Dean will understand, once I explain. He values family as well.'

 

'We'll see.'

 

There was no good-bye, only the flutter of wings, and then Castiel was gasping awake, bolting upright in bed, his body drenched in sweat. Dean grabbed his arm, concerned etched on his face.

 

'Hey, you okay? You were thrashing all over the place. Must have been some nightmare.'

 

'It wasn't a dream.' Castiel rubbed at his arms, where goosebumps had broken out from the chill of the air.

 

Dean raised one eyebrow. 'What was it then?'

 

Castiel sighed and gave up on the idea of anymore sleep for that night.

 

'Trouble.'


End file.
